Or maybe Mackinnon is full of crap, as has been my view all along. I just don’t think the new study goes nearly as far toward proving that as the author of the story seems to think.

To give the cliche example, foot size correlates strongly with performance on standardized tests. It’s a impressively strong correlation, in fact. But it’s also pretty valueless, since we could already expect infants to do worse on the SATs than we would a full-grown adult, and full grown adults tend to have larger feet than infants.

Likewise, in addition to the Cap’n’s viewpoints, there have also been significant advances in other sectors that weren’t ‘adjusted’ for – for example, internet use is correlated to more female-friendly concept adoption (as well as many other things), simply as a side effect of chat rooms. There is also a correlation between internet use and self-education that haven’t been seen at any time in history before : it’s just never been so easy to find more answers than you need for any given question, and often the excess info leaks in (a mini-Singularity, if you will).

I agree that porn pretty assuredly doesn’t cause rape (although it does encourage kinks) and may have a beneficial aspect, but taking a few time points and slapping a map around them really isn’t particularly useful.

And it’s reasonable to think that access ot the net is access to porn. There’s a ton of porn on the net and it’s easy to get to. If you believe that increased access to porn doesn’t lead to increased viewing of porn, you’ve forgotten what it’s like to be a horny young man.

There are all sorts of alternative explanations, like all those teenage kids are actually playing Call of Duty or Warcraft online with their friends than downloading dirty movies (I’ve done that for several hours at a time; it’s quite engrossing. Uh, playing games, that is). And the study completely ignores another major development over the past decade: The explosion nationwide of concealed carry permitees. Perhaps the reason women aren’t being raped as often is because the word is getting out to potential rapists that they might get shot.

Look, I don’t believe porn causes rape; never did. My attitude towards porn has always been whatever turns you on, just don’t force me or my kids to view it. But to assume that it prevents rape by directly correlating internet access with porn viewing is just as wrong. Correlation does not equal causation.